“Storytelling rocks.” Two words I never thought I’d hear from an expert in data analytics. But Avinash Kaushik isn’t like most data experts, and the lessons he offers can help professionals in any industry stand out from the competition.

Kaushik loves data. He really loves it. Kaushik writes a popular blog, has written two bestselling books on web analytics, and is considered a big deal in the space. He’s also a big deal at
Google, an
Alphabet company. Kaushik plays two important roles at the company. As Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, he meets with leaders who run the world’s largest brands, helping them understand and embrace the full power of the new digital world. Internally, Kaushik has a second, equally important job. He teaches 4,000 account leads, sales and marketing professionals at Google, to be better storytellers.

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“My job is to change the way Googlers tell stories,” Kaushik said during my visit to his Google office in Mountain View, California. Along with a team of 75 people, Kaushik holds workshops to spread the gospel of storytelling to Google professionals who are responsible for billions of dollars in annual revenue. As you can see in my conversation with Kaushik, he is very passionate about the topic.

“Avinash, when people think of Google, they think of search. They think of data. What role does storytelling play?” I asked.

Kaushik says that Google provides an immense amount of data to clients who can use the information to make transformative changes in their business. But a data dump will fail to help customers if they can’t make sense of it. That’s where Kaushik and his storytellers step in. “The size and the scope of the change we drive is so big, that I think it is best done with stories,” says Kaushik.

Say no to insights; say yes to out-of-sights.

We all know the world is awash in data. And nowhere are the numbers more striking than at Google. Every second of every day people perform 40,000 search queries on Google alone, 1.2 trillion searches a year. Every minute of every day people view nearly 3 million video streams on YouTube. The amount of data that we consume and the insights into consumer behavior that brands can learn from the data are simply too overwhelming for most people to grasp.

A key component of the storytelling framework at Google is to kick off a customer presentation or a new business pitch with an “out-of-sight,” which is more profound than an insight, a piece of information that everyone knows. For example, if I tell you that fewer people are reading print newspapers and spending more time on mobile devices, it’s not a groundbreaking revelation. It’s a small insight that doesn’t advance the conversation. A Google presenter must open with an "out-of-sight," a big, transformative idea that will radically alter a customer’s perspective.